Study & Write T7 (Post about one of the Ten Commandments by Virginia Shea)
In this post I would like to take a look at commandment 3, which claims: "Know where you are in cyberspace" that is a part of Ten Commandment written by Virginia Shea. What's important to mention here is that in different "parts" of the Internet different rules apply. It depends on what is the channel of your communication and who you are communicating with. In our society, these two problems are now more or less united into one. For example, we use messengers to chat with friends and sometimes colleagues, emails are used to write letters to your managers, Zoom and Skype will be used for business meetings, but you will use Discord for a relaxed talk and gaming sessions with your friends. This way, it is much easier for us to pick appropriate language in different channels of communication. Chatting with your friends is clearly informal and may even involve topics and language not appropriate for other segments of the Internet society, though it is still important to stay polite (which may be interpreted as commandment 5 (Make yourself look good online) and commandment 2 (Adhere to the same standards of behaviour online that you follow in real life). If you make jokes with friends, in real world it may even be easier to see their reaction and adjust to it. So, when making jokes online I would recommend to always mention that it was a joke and you didn't mean to offend anybody. As I mentioned above, emails are now mostly used for business only, though some people still use informal language for writing about business. I would like to provide one such example I have found on the Internet:
We can clearly understand that this email was supposed to be formal, though written informally. As a result, this person offer will be rejected, as no one would like to discuss business with such people. This is what the person that received this email writes about it:
- Is all about them, and nothing about why it would be valuable to my specific audience;
- Zero personalization;
- It’s generic and offers nothing of value to my audience;
- Doesn’t even sell me on the content (but it does link to it so I could check it out if interested)
- Doesn’t offer me anything in return. Why should I add it??
This was an example why it is important to always remember where you are on the Internet. So, if you end up in an unknown to you channel of communication, e.g. in a forum you have never visited before, it is always worth taking a look around. You should get a sense of how the people who are already there act. And when you feel that you have a full idea of it, you may participate in this forum. Though, you should never forget about other 9 commandments of the Netiquette by Virginia Shea, which are clearly interconnected.
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